What started out as a casual morning walk by three friends through the popular De Hel recreational area above Constantia turned into a hellish experience when they were robbed by two knife-wielding thugs.

"They kept saying 'We will f… kill you! We will f… kill you! Give us your f… back-packs!'" one of the victims, Sue Holmes of Newlands, said on Thursday.

There is speculation the two robbers may be members of a gang that has been terrorising hikers and walkers on various parts of Table Mountain in recent months.
'I even smiled at the one who was really a mean-looking bugger, a real skollie'

De Hel, a natural extension of the Constantia green belt, is a thickly wooded area just below Constantia Nek, between Constantia Main Road and Southern Cross Drive.

The nightmare walk started as usual at 9.15am on Tuesday, when 60-year-old Holmes, a woman companion of the same age who preferred not to be named, and their 65-year-old friend Peter, who also asked not to be identified because the robbers now had his car keys, set out with four dogs - a "little yapper", a Scottish terrier, a sheepdog and a Labrador.

Holmes said they reached a flat area towards the middle of the walk when her friend noticed two men in their early 20s coming up behind them.

"The little dog had been yapping for a while, so we think they must have been following us for a while. We stepped aside to let them pass and, stupid me, I even smiled at the one who was really a mean-looking bugger, a real skollie."

But the men grabbed Holmes's friend, the smallest of the three, ripped at her backpack as they tried to pull it off and screamed obscenities as they ordered the group to hand over the other backpacks.
'We are all fine. We're jolly lucky we're okay, but it was just so dreadful'

Holmes said she had calmly undone the top of her pack and removed her keys before handing it over, but that Peter had been unable to get his keys out.

"We're fit but we're not strong enough to have been able to do anything.

"And people say you should carry pepper-spray, but I don't think there's a hope in hell that we'd have been able to use it, and it may even have aggravated the situation.

"I realised that they target the smallest person first, the one they think will be the weakest."

The men had been "jolly nervous" and possibly high on drugs.

One dog had kept barking during the incident, and Holmes said that, judging from his reaction, she's convinced one robber would have killed it "in a flash" if he'd been able to.

The robbers had taken the woman friend's watch but otherwise got away with little of value: two backpacks, two windcheaters, a water bottle and an "ancient old Nokia cellphone of no use to anyone".

Holmes said they had reported the robbery at the Wynberg police station afterwards and had been helped immediately.

"I must tell you, the police and the trauma counsellors were outstanding. I'm hugely impressed with them.

"We are all fine. We're jolly lucky we're okay, but it was just so dreadful. It was definitely not a nice experience."

Holmes said she agreed that people out walking should probably not wear watches or jewellery - "Why wear a watch to have a knife at your throat?" - and not keep their car keys in their backpacks.

"And a cellphone is an obvious target, although it's a bit of a Catch-22 situation as you may need it for some other emergency," she said.

A Pretoria man miraculously escaped death when he was shot at point-blank range in the head during a house robbery in the early hours of Friday morning.

The 9mm bullet lodged in his skull millimetres from his brain.

The close shave occurred when Groenkloof resident Larry Shulman, 63, surprised two men in the lounge of his home.

Shulman was walking around his Herbert Baker Street home after being woken by the house alarm when he was shot.
'I could not believe that I was not dead'

The attack, according to Shulman's rabbi Gidon Fox, is the second violent house robbery in the street in the past week.

Speaking from his hospital bed shortly before a four-and-a-half hour operation to remove the bullet lodged in his skull, Shulman said everything had happened very quickly.

"I was walking through the kitchen holding my walking stick when I noticed that the door leading into the lounge was open.

"As I put my head around the corner I saw two men standing metres away from me in the lounge."

Swinging his walking stick at the men, Shulman hit one of them over the head before he was overpowered and beaten to the ground.
'I do not know what I would have done if he had died'

Lying on the floor Shulman remembers a man leaning over him and a bright flash as the man fired his gun.

"I was in shock. I could not believe that I was not dead. Everything seemed to happen at once. I remember screaming for help and my wife running to me.

"I could feel blood all over me and thought I was dying," he said.

Neighbours who heard the gunshots immediately rallied around the injured Shulman as police raced to the scene.

A search of the neighbouring Klapperkop reserve where the robbers had fled led to nothing. Shulman said the robbers had forced their way into his home after breaking the burglar bars in the scullery.

"At this stage we are not sure if they took anything. It looks as though I surprised them before they could grab any of our valuables."

His shaken wife Ashney said she was grateful that her husband was alive. "It is a sheer miracle. God was looking out for him. I do not know what I would have done if he had died," she said.

Rabbi Fox said the attack and other attacks in Pretoria were mortifying. "According to our government, crime is not severe, but attacks like this are of great concern. What is even more worrying though is the government's apathy, which is even more frightening than the crime itself.

"This is very scary. In any other society the national police commissioner would be fired because of his apathy about the crime rate."

An elderly man who is paralysed and his wife, both 80, are in a serious condition in hospital after being shot by gunmen in their Elarduspark home.

Police initially tried to cover up the incident and not let the media get wind of it but later confirmed it.

The elderly couple lived with their son-in-law. In the early hours of the morning three gunmen gained access to the house and tied up the owners of the house.

Lyttelton police station commander Director Andre Wiese said that when the gunmen went into the elderly couple's room shots were fired. The man was shot once and the woman twice.

Wiese said no one was arrested and police are investigating a case of house robbery and attempted murder.

A neighbour who did not want to be named said the woman was shot in the arm and the man in the abdomen. The elderly man is apparently in a critical condition in ICU at Pretoria Academic Hospital.

The community is still keeping mum on the incident following police instructions that if they speak to the media the area would be targeted by criminals.

The Pretoria News approached the son-in-law of the victims at their Platinum Street home but he immediately said he did not want the story published.

He confirmed that the police had told his family and residents at the scene early in the morning that they should not talk to the media.

Wiese confirmed that he initially gave the directive. He said that he gave the instructions so that the information regarding the incident could be co-ordinated (by the police) and correctly relayed to the media. "Everyone has their own version of the story," he said.

Provincial head of police communications in Gauteng Director Govindsamy Mariemuthoo could not comment on this specific incident. He said that the police officer who made the statement would have to answer for himself.

But he said the police could not tell the public not to speak to the media: "Journalists can speak to whoever they want to."

I suppose Thabo Mbeki can say that there isn't a problem with crime in South Africa while he has got body guards around him 24/7.
But the day someone puts a gun in his face & robs him I'm going to be crawling around on the ground with laughter. The deputy national police commissioner had his turn this week end.

South Africa
'I won't comment on this crime'
2007-2-12 10:01
Johannesburg - Deputy national police commissioner Tim Williams has become one of the latest victims of armed attackers who have been terrorising families in Pretoria's eastern suburbs, the Pretoria News reported on Monday. Williams, national commissioner Jackie Selebi's second in charge responsible for crime intelligence and detection, opened a case of attempted murder and attempted housebreaking at the Brooklyn police station.
The incident happened early on Thursday morning when suspects tried to gain access to Williams's home in Glenwood Road, Lynnwood Glen, the daily reported.
According to police sources, officers at the scene were warned of "serious consequences" if news of the incident leaked to the press.
Relaxing with family and friends at his home on Sunday, Williams did not want to comment on the matter.
"Who gave you this information?" he asked when questioned about the incident.
"I will comment on any other crime except this one," he said.

The crux of the matter for me, is that we should not be WAITING for Thabo to care about crime.
We should not have to live with these savage blacks and as a culture if we stand together and as one voice tell them we dont want to be ruled by them THEN maybe we can go back to a time when my sister and i could cycle our tricycles down the road to the shop and play outside until after dark.

Because it is not whites who walk into a neighbours house, rape the pregnant wife and bludgeon the husband to death with a brick.

It is not whites who wait in an open veld for group of school girls to walk by so they can gang rape them.

It makes me sick that after Thabo's state of the union address last week, even my white friends were "impressed" with him acknowledging crime!

So after 350 000 deaths since 1994 our president actually acknowledges there may be a problem and even whites are impressed.
SHows how little we expect from blacks.

My point is, why are we trying to cosey up to a black majority that is NEVER going to want us there and even liberal white traitors will admit are we EVER all going to live in harmony as one big rainbow family?